A messed-up international disorder

 

So, looking at the mess in Ukraine, what's my take?

The upside: Putin is apparently not the type for strategic surprise attacks. This calms my fears for NATO, as Russia could only hope to succeed with an aggression in the Baltic if it attacks by surprise. I am very pleasantly surprised about this.

Why did Western policy fail in Ukraine? In short; it was half-assed. No great power signed and ratified a bilateral alliance treaty with Ukraine to cover it until a much longer (and more overt from the beginning) NATO accession process could be concluded. Either draw Ukraine into the West or don't, half-assed measures are prone to disappoint.

So what did Russia do? The Russian Federation with Putin as de facto dictator (voting him out of office is not really an option for Russians) violated international law (Charter of the United Nations and more) by becoming aggressive against Ukraine in 2014 and occupying parts of its territory. It's thus an aggressor and occupier comparable to Iraq 90/91, Israel since 1967, Turkey since 1974 (a NATO member and I don't see any sanctions), Morocco since 1975, the U.S., UK and Poland in 2003 for a difficult to determine duration.

As you might have spotted, only one country on that list was beaten up (repeatedly) for the offence. All others officially got away, typically due to protection courtesy by the UNSC veto feature.

This is the problem: The West routinely expects non-Western countries (especially governments it doesn't like) to adhere to international law and paints them as evil when they don't (and often does so even only because there are expectations such as Iran never having violated the NPT, but still being assailed constantly). Yet International Law doesn't seem to feel all that binding and imperative to Western great power policy, or even only to its proxies.

Do as I say, not as I do.

A great attempt was made to build a world based on international law and order in 1944 with the founding of the United Nations. The 1991 war to hand back Kuwait to its kleptocrat-tyrant was widely perceived as a most promising effort to enforce such a rule of international law in the post-Cold War era. 

Yet the Americans did not scale back their (since the trigger-happiness of Reagan in the 1980's) habitual aggressions; they bombed Afghanistan, Bosnian Serbs (with Brits and Frenchmen), Sudan and Iraq (repeatedly, but with little munitions) in the short 1992-1998 time frame. None of this was legal under international law, and there wasn't even the slightest hint of fig leaf legality in the bombing of the Bosnian Serbs around Sarajevo.

Meanwhile, the NATO bureaucrats and allied politicians worked hard to keep NATO "relevant" after its original purpose became obsolete; a defensive alliance was re-worked into an intervention/war adventure club.

Then came the 1999 Kosovo Air War, preceded by a multinational campaign of lies. There was no genocide, period. The Kosovars' intent to become independent was legitimate, but the Serbs-run governments' police, paramilitary and military actions against the violent independence movement were legal under international law and an ordinary response. The conflict happened in the context of the earlier genocidal massacre committed by Serbs at Srebrenica in Bosnia and thus the Western public was fairly easily convinced and swayed by the lie of an alleged ethnic cleansing/genocide in Kosovo (I was fooled back then as well, and never again since).

Almost all Western powers of note participated in this aggression against Yugoslavia, which was blatantly against international law. The recognition of Kosovo's independence years later and ongoing Western troops presence to keep it that way provided blueprints that were later used by Russia.

West Germany/Reunited Germany had its original sin with this Kosovo affair and our federal constitutional court threw officers under the bus who had correctly and valiantly refused orders to participate in this aggression.

Afghanistan was invaded in 2001. It was no a clean self-defence by a long shot, as the Taleban were never killing anyone outside of Afghanistan and Pakistan, but most if not all countries kinda understood and tolerated the American rage.

Once more, NATO was brought into the conflict for absolutely no need, and very contrary to the North Atlantic Treaty, but by this point nobody seemed to care about the treaty any more. The idea of what NATO is or should be had been warped beyond recognition. The craze about the Taleban who had merely granted hospitality to UBL who helped them in their civil war lasted for two decades and very recently the U.S. government stole billions of dollars owned by the Afghan government. It appears as if they are bound to multi-generational anger about Afghanistan comparable to how they still hate Iran's government for the 1979 embassy crisis.

The Kosovo Air War blueprint of massive campaign of lies, deception and vilification was replayed by the Neocons to lie the U.S. (and the UK under the fool Blair, plus Poland) into a completely unjustified war of aggression against Iraq in 2003 (this time I didn't fall for it at all). Again, they got away with it in the UNSC, but this time the Iraqis made it very expensive for them. The American wars in the Mid East including Afghanistan total exceeds USD 6.5 trillion expenses including long-term costs.

The lying moron did "cruise missile diplomacy" (an aggression) against Syria, and most Americans seem to think he was a peacenik who abstained from aggressions. That's how badly their perception of what constitutes aggression was warped.

Now let's skip the South Ossetia War of 2008 (the Russian Federation was and is an aggressor in both South Ossetia and Abchasia, similar to what the West did in Kosovo), and look at the Russia-Ukraine conflict:

By international law, Ukraine is a sovereign country, including Donezk, Lugansk, Crimea. Its government is legal and legitimate, but that's not even of importance. Even dictatorships are sovereign countries and shall not be attacked under international law.

By international law, Russia is waging a (most of the time limited, as for example no air power was used until 2022) war of aggression against Ukraine.

The outrage is huge in the West.

How could Russia do this? Russia is evil! 

 

Sure, it's evil, but so are we Westerners.  

The problem is that the West did not only fail to bolster International law, it systematically disregarded it and preferred "might makes right" for itself.

The U.S. and UK are just as evil as Russia.*

Other European countries stood by, supported or tolerated or sometimes called for the aggressions of the U.S. and UK. Most of "the West" is guilty by association, as much as Germany was involved in starting the First World War by giving the aggressive Austria-Hungary a "blank cheque" that it'll support it in the summer 1914 crisis. Austria-Hungary's behaviour in summer of 1914 was accurately replayed by the Neocons in 2002/2003. All those politicians who like to give speeches about learning from history are cherry pickers.

Now we live in a world where Westerners understand that they aren't the only ones who can exploit such international lawlessness and play "might makes right".

This is a failure of Western foreign policy, and a well-deserved disgrace on the Western world. Putin would have had much more to fear if he ruled Russia in a world that had become accustomed to international law being followed by great powers for three decades. Now instead, he can rest assured that Western hypocrisy has dulled the blade of international law and his aggression will be tolerated by most of the world just as were Western aggressions.

Maybe we can push back the warmongers and launch another push for international law (for real), but it will be too late for Ukraine. Russia will at the very least (in my opinion) keep parts of Ukraine occupied and an open wound that very much prevents its accession into NATO, similar to what it does to Georgia.

It's much more likely that the warmongers who in large part got us into this messy, lawless world will feel an updraft and there will be more interventions and more military spending.

I hate warmongers and defense with an "s" hawks.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

 

*: France is a trickier case, and I dismiss Poland's participation in the war of aggression against Iraq as a one-off.